


The Christmas Visitor

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Primeval
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Silly, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:40:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28264821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: Stephen has an unexpected encounter in the middle of the night.
Relationships: Stephen Hart/Tom Ryan
Kudos: 2





	The Christmas Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a Christmas present for the lovely nietie who gave the prompt “Do you hear what I hear?”

Stephen shot up in bed, startling Ryan so much he knocked a lamp onto the floor where it rolled around and came to a broken stop.

“What the _fuck_?”

“Did you hear that?”

“I heard you giving me a heart attack,” Ryan muttered, reaching for his phone to try and work out what time it was.

“So you didn't hear anything?”

Ryan put down his phone and rubbed a hand across his face. “Did I hear anything at 3.30am on Christmas morning? No, no I didn't.”

Stephen was still sitting up ramrod straight in bed, eyes wide and staring at the door. Ryan shifted and put what he hoped was a comforting hand on his back and started to rub in soothing circles. Stephen slowly started to relax and then laughed a little sheepishly at himself.

“Sorry, sorry. Bad dream, I guess.”

“Come back to bed,” Ryan said, removing his hand and shifting to lie back down. They had four blissful days off work to look forward to and he wanted at least half of them to be spent in bed. Hopefully not all of them asleep.

Stephen looked down at Ryan and then seemed to come to a decision. “I think I'll make a hot chocolate or something. You go back to sleep.”

Ryan half shrugged his shoulders and pulled the covers back over himself. He was too tired to argue with a wired Stephen.

Stephen got up and put on his Elf slippers (a Secret Santa present he figured must be from Connor) and wrapped himself in Ryan's fleecy dressing gown before carefully slipping out of the room. He stood on the landing listening again for any sound. Despite what he'd told Ryan he still wasn't entirely convinced that he'd just imagined the sound of bells that had woken him up.

Shaking his head a little, trying not to sound paranoid even to himself he hesitated at the top of the stairs and then quietly darted into the spare bedroom which they used as an exercise room and picked up one of Ryan's dumbbells just in case.

Slowly, avoiding the fourth step from the top that always creaked loudly, he made his way downstairs and waited trying to separate the sound of his heart beating from anything more nefarious. This would be his and Ryan's third Christmas together but the first in the home they'd bought for themselves and Stephen found himself smiling at the twinkling lights Ryan had twined around the stairs and down the banister – the man was a surprisingly enthusiastic celebrator of all things Christmas.

Just as Stephen had decided that the stress of the last three weeks, when all of them had been required to pull triple shifts while Cutter recovered from his gun shot wound in hospital, had finally sent him a little bit mad, he heard the sound of crunching paper and something falling over from the direction of the living room.

Part of him wanted to call Ryan down and get him to help him and the more rational side of his brain decided that Ryan wouldn't be pleased to be woken up again if all they were dealing with was a bird having flown down the chimney.

He toed off his slippers, feeling better somehow to be walking in bare feet and gripped the dumbbell tightly in his hands, ready to swing. Then he slowly inched towards the living room where the door was standing slightly ajar.

Standing in front of the Christmas tree was an elderly looking man with white hair wearing a long red coat.

“Time for little boys to be in bed,” the man said in a soft voice with a hint of a Nordic accent.

“Who – no – what?” Stephen said, carefully stepping inside the room. “What are you doing?”

“Delivering presents, Stephen, it's Christmas.”

The man turned towards him and smiled, his eyes twinkling. Stephen dropped the dumbbell on the floor, narrowly missing his own foot.

“No,” Stephen said. “No. No, I'm dreaming. Or I've lost my mind. Or something.”

There was a knock at the window and Stephen turned and found a couple of reindeer looking in, pressing their noses against the glass with interest.

“Now, now, Stephen, time for you to be in bed. You're not supposed to see me at work, you know.”

Stephen's legs buckled from under him and he sat down, hard, on the arm of the sofa.

“Father Christmas isn't real,” he said, finally, after watching the man who couldn't be Father Christmas putting presents under the tree and adjusting a few of the baubles. “This is – I'm having a stoke. That's what it is. Or a brain haemorrhage.”

Outside one of the reindeer snorted softly.

Stephen, curious despite himself, went to the window and opened it slightly so that he could get a better look. One of the reindeer put his head close to Stephen's hand and Stephen found himself gently stroking its nose. It felt very real. It also, now that Stephen was closer, didn't look much like the reindeer he was familiar with. It was much larger for one thing. More prehistoric looking if he had to guess, which he hoped he didn't.

“How else do you expect me to travel around the world in a single night if not through the – what do you call them? Anomalies?”

“What do you call them?”

“Roads.”

“You're not Father Christmas.”

“That's not the name my mother gave me,” the man agreed.

“But -”

“I saw a need and I filled it. Where's the harm in that?”

“Breaking and entering for a start,” Stephen said, sitting back down on the sofa.

The man smiled and lifted his bag easily on to his broad shoulders. “Do you happen to have any broccoli? My reindeer prefer that to carrots.”

In something of a daze, not sure why he felt compelled to obey the other man, Stephen went into the kitchen and pulled some slightly worse for wear looking broccoli out of the fridge. When he returned to the living room it was empty, the window was closed, and a dozen presents that he knew neither he nor Ryan had purchased were sitting under the tree.

Stephen stood stock still for several moments before slowly turning around and heading back to his bed, broccoli still in his hand.

* * * * *

Ryan yawned and absently batted his alarm silent. He shifted a little closer to Stephen and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. Then he reached around Stephen's body and frowned as he felt something prickly by Stephen's arm.

“Stephen?” he asked. When Stephen didn't respond Ryan stood up and blinked several times before rubbing at his eyes to make sure he wasn't still asleep. “Stephen, what you are doing with the broccoli?”

Stephen mumbled something into his pillow.

“What?”

“It's for Father Christmas,” Stephen replied a little louder.

“O-kay.” Ryan tried to think of something else that he could say but found himself coming up empty.

Stephen didn't seem inclined to get up just yet so finally Ryan went into the bathroom and had a quick shower. He knew that the last few weeks had been stressful but he hadn't realised quite how much Stephen was suffering.

Finally coming to a decision he came out of the bathroom and got dressed, all the time keeping an eye on Stephen who was still curled up in bed under the covers. The broccoli was now lying on the floor.

“I'm going to get breakfast started,” Ryan said. “Then I'll call Jenny and see about getting us some more time off.”

Stephen mumbled something but Ryan couldn't make it out and decided against pressing for a response. Instead he headed downstairs, frowning at Stephen's slippers by the door to the living room and picking them up as well as one of his dumbbells which he'd felt certain he'd left upstairs.

He took them into the kitchen then went back into the living room to open the curtains and switch on the tree lights. He stared at the pile of presents, wondering if Stephen was so tired because he'd been secretly wrapping more presents in the night and then opened the curtains, frowning at the marks on the glass as if something had been pressed against them. Then he peered outside where a light dusting of snow made the hoof marks in the garden even more noticeable.

Ryan took this in slowly, then looked between the garden and the tree and then back again.

“No,” he said to himself. “Not possible.”

He slowly walked into the kitchen, put the kettle on and then picked up the phone.

“Jenny? It's Tom. Sorry to disturb you on Christmas Day. Yeah, um, I don't know how to put this, but Stephen and I are going to need some time off...Sick leave....Yeah, it's – it's probably best if you could come over, actually. Fresh pair of eyes. Thank you. Yeah, I'll have breakfast waiting.”

Ryan put down the phone and looked up as Stephen entered the room, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.

“Did you -?” Stephen asked, waving toward the living room.

“Yeah,” Ryan replied.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

They stood staring at each other for a moment then the kettle finished boiling and as Ryan got out the teapot they only used for special occasions Stephen began to get smoked salmon and cream cheese out of the fridge.

Neither of them said another word until Jenny rang the doorbell, Connor and Abby in tow. Connor was excitedly talking about an error with the ADD where all sorts of anomalies opened and closed throughout the night all over the world.

“Must be some sort of solar eclipse or something,” he babbled, pulling out reams of print outs from inside his jacket. “Look here, at these coordinates...”

Stephen and Ryan both zoned him out and moved to the corner of the kitchen where they had a furiously whispered conversation that eventually attracted the other's attention.

“What is it?” Jenny asked.

“I think you need to see the garden,” Stephen replied. He took them out the back door and pointed at the hoof tracks. It only took a moment for them to realise what he was suggesting.

“But that's absurd,” Jenny said with a little laugh, though she didn't look amused.

“He said he travelled through the anomalies,” Stephen told her. “And if Connor's right...”

“Oh, wow. Oh, wow, that, wow,” Connor spluttered.

“I'll call Lester,” Jenny said. “Tell him he needs to hire some more staff so we can all take a break. The strain is obviously getting to us.”

“It's nice though, isn't it?” Abby, who'd been quiet all this time, came forward and pressed her fingers to the hoof marks. “To think someone's out there, just being kind for the sake of it. No agenda.”

“Everyone has an agenda,” Ryan said softly but Abby ignored him.

“If whoever he is wants to travel around and give gifts to people who need a little pick me up, or who have no expectation of getting anything at all, why not just let him get on with it. He's not hurting anybody. And someone, somewhere, might be having the best Christmas Day they've ever had because of him. And his reindeer.”

Ryan looked like he wanted to argue but stopped when he saw the soft look on Stephen's face. Stephen didn't talk about it much but his childhood hadn't been filled with much love or warmth, and certainly not with many happy Christmas memories. Maybe this Father Christmas really did know what he was doing.

“All right,” Ryan said, “then let's eat breakfast and open up these presents. Stephen does a pretty good roast dinner so I'm leaving that to him.”

Stephen smiled, a slight blush to his cheeks, and pressed a quick kiss to Ryan's mouth before disappearing inside to the kitchen. The others all slowly followed with Ryan the last to move, just standing and waiting, for he didn't know what. Then the sky seemed to fill with white and snow began to fall, gently blanketing the garden until all sign of last night's visitors were gone as if it had all just been a dream. Still, Ryan thought he knew better now and silently mouthed thank you up into the sky.

Then he turned back inside and securely locked the door. No point in taking chances, after all.


End file.
